Faith, assurance and presumption

Use in the book

The account of understanding places Faith among durable intellectual habits, available for use rather than confined to a passing act. “Some reckon” introduces the enumeration: Burton is reporting a scheme before attempting to reconcile it with a different Aristotelian list. Faith is not one of the three powers identified here as innate. In the ensuing medical disagreement, faith, opinion, discourse and reasoning are said to be impaired “by accident,” through a defect of imagination. Faith there means belief, and the impairment is secondary, not accidental in the sense of happening by chance. The two passages distinguish a capacity of understanding from its disturbed exercise.

The wider book supplies useful contrasts. Burton’s defence of compilation says that medical writers can follow Galen in another style without a different fidelity: non diversâ fide concerns faithfulness to material, not a different religion. A faithful friend can relieve distress because affection and trust make disclosure possible. Poetical faith, by contrast, is requested for the tale of Death falling in love with the young woman he means to strike. It signals the kind of assent the story invites, not proof that the event occurred.

Faith joined to medical imagination has another speaker. Paracelsus, as Burton reports him, tells patients to have good faith and a strong imagination and promises effects regardless of theological objections. Burton has already called the application of “you are gods” to magicians profane, and the later answer rejects magical cures even when relief is claimed. “A good faith” is therefore confidence commended within a position Burton opposes, not his own unrestricted recommendation of confidence as a cure.

In the praise of charity, faith and hope sustain love; the three become an indissoluble cord, a Gordian knot and an equilateral triangle. Union does not cancel rank: Burton repeats Paul’s statement that love is greatest. In the religious controversy he distinguishes mysteries accepted by faith from the absurdities he attributes to superstition. The Trinity, Incarnation and resurrection are his examples. Julian’s objection that Christianity enslaves understanding to faith is followed by a defence: supernatural mysteries have grounds of credibility, although they are not accepted only after certain demonstration. The Gregory-associated Fides non habet meritum is placed after an assertion of “good reasons,” not offered as an instruction to discard every reason for belief. The following refusal to defend the doctrine Burton calls “pontificial consubstantiation” also shows how confessionally selective his defence is.

The quantity of confidence alone cannot establish its worth. In his hostile account of sectarian religion, Burton calls the faith that ventures into infected houses, expels devils and imitates Christ’s forty-day fast presumptuous. His target is confidence claiming extraordinary warrant; the catalogue is his polemical generalization, not an account of every member of the groups named. He also criticizes preaching at both extremes. Judgement without mercy drives hearers to despair, while mercy presented without judgement breeds security in the adverse sense. The English says terrifying preachers do more harm; the quoted Erasmus margin instead leaves the comparative danger undecided. Both agree that either extreme is dangerous.

The consolation makes the contrast explicit through Hemmingius: good hope from God’s word is to be embraced, but perverse security and presumption are to be rejected as harmful as despair. Burton nevertheless calls both “Antidotes,” an awkwardness the edition preserves. His discourse initially addresses people examined and prepared to receive comfort, then immediately recognizes that distress may prevent the prayer, belief and repentance that advice requires. Assistance must meet the particular infirmity rather than assume that the sufferer can already perform the desired response.

The sufferer’s objection opens the next exchange: the promised mercy would suffice if repentance were possible, but no ability to believe or repent can be felt. Burton answers that delay is not final exclusion. “No fruit, no feeling” calls for patience, not the inference “I am a reprobate.” He likens cold or apparently dead faith to trees that flourish after winter and to sparks concealed from sight. The winter-tree image is expressed through may and peradventure, alongside the confident promises surrounding it that God will call the sufferer and that belief will come. The wish to believe then becomes the basis for the prayer “Lord help mine unbelief.” The reassurance does not claim that the distress has already disappeared.

Desire matters, but the argument carefully qualifies what it accomplishes. The person can be penitent in affection before action; desire to repent counts as repentance not in its nature but in God’s acceptance. The ensuing conclusion gives efficacy to divine mercy joined to faith and repentance, rather than to those human acts considered alone. Bradford’s answer to Careless supplies a concrete parallel: a heart desiring to repent and believe is accepted as penitent and believing. Their exchange is quoted testimony, not Burton’s own confession.

Later the problem of certainty becomes a dispute with the accuser. Asked how they can know that they are not reprobates, Burton asks how they can know that they are. The charcoal-burner answers the devil’s doctrinal interrogation only by saying that he believes as the Church does, and that the Church believes as he does. The circularity is the point: he refuses the endless contest rather than demonstrating every doctrine. Christ’s protection then becomes a brazen wall, and “certainty of faith” a support against accusation. The pronouns in “Though he say” return to Satan after Christ has been named as protector. A subsequent “this perswasion” has an uncertain antecedent which the edition does not silently settle.

Burton’s exhortation “be secure” is immediately challenged by the sufferer: how can assurance be distinguished from carnal presumption when faith is weak? The complaint gives a substantial list of supposedly missing signs: sorrow for sin, thirst for grace, groanings of the spirit, love of Christians as Christians, avoidance of occasions of sin, endeavour after new obedience, charity, love of God and perseverance. Abernethy is the marginal authority for the signs. These are not defects independently established by the narrator. Burton replies that the elect themselves lack such signs before conversion; their weakness or absence now cannot warrant the conclusion of final rejection. He urges the means of conversion, prayer, desire and waiting, not the abandonment of those practices.

The continuing doctrinal dispute prevents the preceding confidence from becoming a simple assertion that everyone will finally be saved. Burton reports wider claims, rejects the universal-restoration conclusion, and distinguishes the invitation to all from the elect being taken hold of. Yet he forbids deciding who is finally rejected or condemning oneself or others, because reception may be late. Near the end, faith, hope and repentance are embers under ashes and the troubled soul a sun behind a cloud. “We must live by faith, not by feeling” refuses to make present feeling the sole guide. Waiting and renewed confidence, rather than a report of an already completed cure, give these images their work.

Related entries

Despair; Conscience; Hope; Habit and disposition; Reason; Friendship. Election and reprobation (Election and reprobation) and Grace (Grace) continue the theological argument in this batch. Carnal presumption is treated within this article, especially the objection and reply above. Secure is the separate companion family for safety, freedom from care, complacency and protection. The assurance construction is also discussed in Hope, compact record security and carnal presumption; its presence here is a shared contextual attestation, not a newly discovered occurrence.

Places to read

1. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 3–5fidelity and changed method in the defence of compilation.
2. Subsection 10. Understanding · paragraphs 29–31faith among intellectual habits; differing enumerations.
3. Subsection 2. The Part Affected The Faculty Affected and the People Affected · paragraphs 22–23belief impaired indirectly through imagination.
4. The Second Partition. The Cure of Melancholy. Section 1. Member 1. Subsection 1. Unlawful Cures Rejected · paragraphs 47–51Paracelsian confidence reported and magical cures rejected.
5. Member 6 Subsection 1 Disturbances of the Mind Corrected Through the Sufferer’s Own Efforts in Resisting as Strongly as Possible and Confiding His Grief to a Friend and So Forth · paragraphs 36–38the trustworthy friend and the relief of disclosure.
6. Member 3 Charity Combining All Three Kinds of Love Pleasant Profitable and Honourable · paragraphs 37–39faith and hope supporting love, which is ranked greatest.
7. Member 2. Subsection 2. Other Causes of Love Melancholy: Sight; Beauty of the Face, Eyes and Other Parts; and How It Pierces Us · paragraphs 17–19; Member 2. Subsection 2. Other Causes of Love Melancholy: Sight; Beauty of the Face, Eyes and Other Parts; and How It Pierces Us · paragraph 18poetical faith and Death’s imagined infatuation.
8. General Symptoms: Love of Their Own Sect; Hatred of All Other Religions; Obstinacy and Ill Temper; Readiness to Undergo Any Danger or Adversity for It; Martyrs; Blind Zeal and Blind Obedience; Fasts and Vows; Belief in Incredible and Impossible Things. Particular Symptoms Among Pagans, Muslims, Jews and Christians; and Among Christians, Heretics Old and New, Schismatics, Scholastic Theologians, Prophets, Enthusiasts and So On · paragraphs 22–29mystery, faith, reasons for belief and a confessionally selective defence.
9. General Symptoms: Love of Their Own Sect; Hatred of All Other Religions; Obstinacy and Ill Temper; Readiness to Undergo Any Danger or Adversity for It; Martyrs; Blind Zeal and Blind Obedience; Fasts and Vows; Belief in Incredible and Impossible Things. Particular Symptoms Among Pagans, Muslims, Jews and Christians; and Among Christians, Heretics Old and New, Schismatics, Scholastic Theologians, Prophets, Enthusiasts and So On · paragraphs 19–21presumptuous claims of extraordinary warrant.
10. Causes of Despair: The Devil, Melancholy, Meditation, Distrust, Weakness of Faith, Harsh Ministers, Misunderstanding Scripture, Guilty Consciences, and So On · paragraphs 33–35dangerous preaching, judgement and mercy.
11. Treatment of Despair Through Medicine, Good Counsel, Consolation, and So On · paragraphs 17–21prepared recipients, rejected presumption and help fitted to individual difficulty.
12. Treatment of Despair Through Medicine, Good Counsel, Consolation, and So On · paragraphs 1–14; Treatment of Despair Through Medicine, Good Counsel, Consolation, and So On · paragraph 5objection, delayed conversion, dormant faith, desire and divine acceptance; especially the passage.
13. Treatment of Despair Through Medicine, Good Counsel, Consolation, and So On · paragraphs 40–48certainty, the charcoal-burner and the protective wall.
14. Treatment of Despair Through Medicine, Good Counsel, Consolation, and So On · paragraphs 49–55; Treatment of Despair Through Medicine, Good Counsel, Consolation, and So On · paragraph 54universal invitation, assurance, the objection, and the reply.
15. Treatment of Despair Through Medicine, Good Counsel, Consolation, and So On · paragraphs 1–22the doctrinal dispute and prohibition of final self-condemnation.
16. Treatment of Despair Through Medicine, Good Counsel, Consolation, and So On · paragraphs 44–51remembered mercy, hidden embers, faith and feeling.

In this edition

“Faith” remains “faith”, whereas “faith” becomes “belief”. The different wording follows the local account of understanding. “A good faith” becomes “firm faith” in the report of Paracelsus. “Poetical faith” becomes “a poet’s faith” in the supplied construction “with a poet’s faith”. These English originals are not passages in another source language; the modern column explains or recasts them.

“Despair not, or think thou art a Reprobate” is rendered “Do not despair or think yourself rejected by God”. “Discern my security from carnall presumption” becomes “distinguish my assurance from fleshly presumption”: discern supplies distinguish, security supplies assurance, and carnall presumption supplies fleshly presumption. Fleshly preserves the theological contrast without restricting it to sensual indulgence. The favourable “be secure” becomes “Be assured”, while “perverse security” becomes “perverse complacency”. No single equivalent serves both uses.

The printed marginal Matthew 6:23 beside “Lord help mine unbelief” is preserved in the source, while the editorial note identifies Mark 9:24. The Abernethy margin is only the name; the explanation of the signs belongs to the modern editorial apparatus. Likewise the Latin in the Hercules de Saxonia margin is an original source quotation, but its English translation is editorial, not a second Burton sentence. The Gregory maxim and the compressed Aristotelian enumeration retain the supplied notes’ textual qualifications; no new collation of those witnesses is claimed.

fides

Faithfulness or fidelity; here the constancy of borrowed material under a change of style.

Grammar: noun; attested ablative singular fide.

Original text: “diverso stilo, non diversâ fide”. In the modern column: “with a different style, not a different fidelity”. The contrast concerns the medical compilers’ presentation of Galen. Burton defends his own compilation through an analogy with earlier compilers, not a change of confession. Fide is ablative singular; fidelity corresponds to that noun. The negation and contrast belong to the whole quoted construction.

faith (understanding)

Belief considered as an enduring intellectual disposition or an activity affected through another faculty.

Grammar: noun, singular; member of a list of intellectual habits or operations.

Original text: “Faith”. In the modern column: “faith”. Faith is one item in the reported enumeration of intellectual habits. Some reckon qualifies the list; later reconciliation is compressed and not an unqualified definition of every habit as acquired. Capitalization alone changes; the local noun is retained.

Original text: “faith, opinion, discourse, ratiocination”. In the modern column: “belief, opinion, discursive thought and reasoning”. Belief is one of the capacities said to be impaired indirectly. Hercules de Saxonia supplies the qualification by accident, meaning secondary consequence of disordered imagination, not chance. Faith supplies belief; discourse and ratiocination separately supply discursive thought and reasoning.

fides (belief)

Belief, here subject to indirect impairment through imagination in a medical authority’s account.

Grammar: noun, nominative singular.

Original margin: “depravatur fides, discursus, opinio &c. per vitium Imaginationes. ex Accidenti.” Supplied note translation or expansion: “belief, discursive thought, opinion, etc., are impaired indirectly through a defect of imagination.” The marginal Latin corroborates the local intellectual sense of faith. Hercules de Saxonia attribution; historical faculty theory, not present-day diagnosis. The coordinated subjects and causal phrase must be kept; fides alone means belief, not the whole impairment clause. The printed Imaginationes remains in the original.

good faith (medical confidence)

Firm confidence in the efficacy of a proposed cure, here paired with forceful imagination.

Grammar: noun phrase; singular faith qualified by good or firm.

Original text: “a good faith, a strong imagination”. In the modern column: “firm faith and a strong imagination”. The reported Paracelsian patient is urged to confidence and imagination. Paracelsus’s position is reported. Burton calls the application to magicians profane and rejects the remedy argument. Good becomes firm in this local use; strong imagination is a separate accompanying expression.

faithful

Trustworthy and dependable, here of a friend who receives confidential distress.

Grammar: adjective qualifying friend.

Original text: “a faithful friend”. In the modern column: “a faithful friend”. The friend can see past the sufferer’s passion and help ease distress. Burton praises disclosure and reports relief; the historical therapeutic claim is not a guaranteed present-day outcome. Both noun and adjective are retained; faithful does not alone mean friend.

faith (religious trust)

Belief and trust directed towards God, joined with hope and charity and invoked against spiritual despair.

Grammar: noun, singular; religious trust, including coordinated faith and hope and the phrase live by faith.

Original text: “sustained by Faith and Hope”. In the modern column: “sustained by faith and hope”. Faith and hope support the love compared to a strong cord and triangle. The three are united, but the explicit Pauline comparison ranks love highest. Faith and Hope are retained; the ranking greatest belongs to love in the following clause.

Original text: “thy faith be cold and dead”. In the modern column: “your faith is cold and dead”. Faith is described as apparently dormant before the possibility of revival is introduced. The although clause concedes the sufferer’s condition; comparison with winter trees resists a final conclusion. The supplied clause retains the metaphor; the following may revive remains modal possibility.

Original text: “we must live by faith, not by feeling”. In the modern column: “We must live by faith, not by feeling”. Faith is distinguished from present affective evidence of grace. Pastoral injunction after the hidden-embers image; present lack of feeling is not a final guide. The complete contrast is retained. Feeling is not declared absent in all believers or irrelevant in every context.

poetical faith

Assent appropriate to poetry and imaginative storytelling rather than literal historical certification.

Grammar: noun phrase; poetical qualifies faith.

Original text: “with a poetical faith”. In the modern column: “with a poet’s faith”. The extravagant tale makes Death fall in love with his intended victim. Burton marks the status of this catalogue of tales before turning to human reactions. Poetical becomes a poet’s inside the same prepositional construction; the article a belongs to the noun phrase.

fides (religious belief)

Religious faith contrasted with a demand for certain demonstration, not with every ground of credibility.

Grammar: noun, nominative singular.

Original text: “Fides non habet meritum, ubi humanâ ratio quærit experimentum”. In the modern column: “Faith has no merit where human reason seeks proof”. The Gregory-associated maxim follows an assertion of reasons supporting belief. Burton endorses the maxim within his defence against Julian, but first allows good reasons. The editorial note records a variant in the consulted Latin comparison. Fides supplies Faith; meritum supplies merit; the conditional relation belongs to the complete sentence.

presumptuous

Claiming unwarranted confidence or authority, especially extraordinary spiritual privilege.

Grammar: adjective, predicative in the description of misplaced religious confidence.

Original text: “such strong faith, so presumptuous”. In the modern column: “such strong faith, so presumptuous”. Strength of confidence becomes rashness when it claims warrant for hazardous biblical imitation. Burton’s hostile sectarian catalogue supplies the valuation; it does not establish a neutral trait of every adherent. The adjective is retained; the following actions exemplify the judgement rather than define every strong faith as presumptuous.

security (complacency)

An unwarranted sense of spiritual safety, contrasted with salutary hope and responsible attention to judgement.

Grammar: noun, singular; complacency, also coordinated with presumption.

Original text: “the other security”. In the modern column: “the other complacency”. Mercy detached from judgement is said to breed complacency. Reported Bernard advice joins both judgement and mercy. Its original Latin margin specifies a misleading display of mercy. Security contributes complacency; the other points back to mercy rather than judgement.

Original text: “perverse security and presumption”. In the modern column: “perverse complacency and presumption”. The second purported antidote is rejected, not recommended. Burton reports Hemmingius and keeps the apparent contradiction in calling both antidotes; one is to be embraced and the other rejected. Security is recast as complacency; presumption is retained as an adjoining noun.

no fruit, no feeling

Absence of perceived effects or inward signs of grace, which the pastoral reply refuses to treat as proof of rejection.

Grammar: paired elliptical noun phrases, each negated by no.

Original text: “thou perceivest no fruit, no feeling”. In the modern column: “you perceive no fruit or feeling yet”. Fruit means signs or effects rather than literal produce; the lack is explicitly perceived and temporal. Although concedes an experienced lack, followed by an imperative not to despair or think oneself reprobate. The original as yet precedes the quotation; modern yet is redistributed to the end of this clause. The noun fruit is retained, not itself translated as feeling.

unbelief

Lack of belief, here acknowledged by a person who desires to believe and asks for help.

Grammar: noun, singular, object of help in the imperative prayer.

Original text: “Lord help mine unbelief”. In the modern column: “Lord, help my unbelief”. The prayer acknowledges deficiency without making it a proof of final exclusion. Burton addresses the person who would believe if able. Printed Matthew 6:23 in the accompanying note is distinguished from Mark 9:24 by the accompanying note. The possessive mine becomes my; the direct prayer is preserved.

certainty of faith

Religious assurance represented as a support or fortification against the accusation of abandonment.

Grammar: noun phrase; singular certainty qualified by of faith.

Original text: “stay thy self in that certainty of faith”. In the modern column: “Steady yourself in that certainty of faith”. The phrase extends the preceding wall-of-bronze image. Burton’s pastoral exhortation replies to Satan’s accusation; it is not Satan promising protection. Stay means steady or support oneself; certainty of faith is retained.

security (assurance)

Confidence in one’s spiritual condition, here sought and questioned rather than condemned in itself.

Grammar: related family: noun security in my security; predicative adjective secure after imperative be in be secure.

Original text: “be secure then”. In the modern column: “Be assured, then”. Burton urges trust after assembling universal promises. The assertion is pastoral; the next objection and later doctrinal distinctions prevent universal salvation from being assumed. Secure is interpreted as assured; this favourable injunction differs from complacency.

Original text: “discern my security from carnall presumption”. In the modern column: “distinguish my assurance from fleshly presumption”. The sufferer asks how genuine assurance can be discriminated from unwarranted confidence. First-person objection, not the narrator’s established diagnosis. The reply refuses an inference from weak signs to rejection. Discern supplies distinguish; security supplies assurance; carnall presumption supplies fleshly presumption.

carnal presumption

Unfounded spiritual confidence rooted in the unrenewed self, distinguished from warranted assurance.

Grammar: noun phrase; carnal/carnall qualifies presumption.

Original text: “carnall presumption”. In the modern column: “fleshly presumption”. The sufferer fears that his confidence might be false because signs of sanctification seem missing. The question belongs to the sufferer. The Abernethy margin gives a source name, not an independent judgement that this sufferer has no grace. Carnall is rendered fleshly and presumption retained; the phrase is broader than sexual indulgence.

signs and fruits of sanctification

Indicators and effects of growth in holiness, listed as things the distressed speaker believes he lacks.

Grammar: coordinated plural nouns signs and fruits, qualified by of sanctification.

Original text: “signes and fruits of sanctification”. In the modern column: “signs and fruits of sanctification”. The list includes sorrow, longing, love, obedience, charity and perseverance. I want means I lack, in the sufferer’s objection. The reply allows weakness of present signs and future conversion. Signes modernizes to signs; fruits and sanctification are retained and require contextual explanation.

embers of faith

Faith imagined as a fire concealed but not necessarily extinguished, capable of renewed activity.

Grammar: metaphorical noun phrase; plural embers qualified by of faith.

Original text: “those embers of faith, hope and repentance, now buried in ashes”. In the modern column: “Those embers of faith, hope and repentance, now buried in ashes”. The metaphor accompanies a clouded sun and anticipates revival. Burton’s confident pastoral promise follows remembrance of earlier mercy; it does not report an observed completed cure. The whole coordinated image is retained; faith alone does not translate the embers or the two other virtues.